Tag: Winston Churchill

Mosul and Churchill’s Wisdom: Put a Lid on It!

Mosul and Churchill’s Wisdom: Put a Lid on It!

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Churchill’s wis­dom speaks to us across the years. Take the con­tro­ver­sy of whether we blab too much in advance about mil­i­tary oper­a­tions, like Mosul.

In the Octo­ber 19th pres­i­den­tial debate, Mr. Trump said the U.S. and Iraqis for­feit­ed “the ele­ment of sur­prise” in pub­li­ciz­ing the com­ing offen­sive against Mosul. This, he insist­ed, allowed Islam­ic State ring­lead­ers to remove them­selves from the dan­ger zone: “Dou­glas MacArthur, George Pat­ton [must be] spin­ning in their graves when they see the stu­pid­i­ty of our coun­try.” Ear­li­er in the week he had asked: “Why don’t we just go in qui­et­ly, right?…

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Churchill on the Century

Churchill on the Century

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Who here is in their For­ties? Are you as pes­simistic as he was?

Win­ston Churchill was 48 when he penned some “Reflec­tions on the Cen­tu­ry,” which may arrest you with their prescience—and their eerie relevance.

His words below are in his orig­i­nal “speech form.” This is the way they were set out on the notes he car­ried with him, how­ev­er well he mem­o­rized his lines. They appear in this style in my col­lec­tion of quo­ta­tions, Churchill by Him­self, but dif­fer from the way you may have encoun­tered them in oth­er books:

 

What a dis­ap­point­ment [this] cen­tu­ry has been.……

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Nightmare Scenario by Norman Longmate

Nightmare Scenario by Norman Longmate

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Nor­man Long­mate, If Britain Had Fall­en: The Real Nazi Occu­pa­tion Plans. Pub­lished 1972, reprint­ed 2012, avail­able from Ama­zon in hard­back, paper­back and Kin­dle editions. 

A recent ker­fuf­fle over drap­ing Nazi ban­ners on beloved British icons reminds me that this has been going on a long time and is per­fect­ly accept­able in exam­in­ing his­tor­i­cal pos­si­b­li­ties. Take the late Nor­man Long­mate, who offered a grip­ping pas­tiche about what might have hap­pened in 1940. As a result, we have a glimpse of a pos­si­ble alternative.

Longmate’s Yarn on the Worst Possibility

Lat­er that after­noon with the Ger­mans already in Trafal­gar Square and advanc­ing down White­hall to take their posi­tion in the rear, the ene­my unit advanc­ing across St.…

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Nazi Banners Drape Blenheim for “Transformers” Film

Nazi Banners Drape Blenheim for “Transformers” Film

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Trans­form­ers: Blenheim Palace bedi­zened with Nazi Swastikas? File this in the over­flow­ing cat­a­logue of much ado about nothing.

Blenheim Affront

On Sep­tem­ber 25th, sev­er­al Churchill writ­ers received an email: “Urgent Media Request—the Sin.” (A typo for the Sun news­pa­per, though iron­i­cal­ly appropriate.)

“I’m a jour­nal­ist with the Sun,” we were told by a mem­ber of their staff. “I’m work­ing on a sto­ry in our paper tomor­row about a dis­gust­ing act which tar­nish­es Sir Win­ston Churchill’s mem­o­ry.” He didn’t say what, but it was easy to guess.

The dis­gust­ing act, already blast­ed around via the Inter­net, was to drape Blenheim (“Churchill’s home” accord­ing to reports) with huge Nazi ban­ners.…

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Zürich
Commemorative plaque, University of Zurich. (Wikimedia / Public Domain)
Zürich +70: Churchill on Europe

Zürich +70: Churchill on Europe

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Zürich, 19 September 1946

Scarce­ly more than a year since fight­ing had end­ed in Europe, Churchill spoke at Zürich Uni­ver­si­ty. There he stunned his audi­ence with words that per­haps only he was able to say at that time:

I am now going to say some­thing that will aston­ish you. The first step in the re-cre­ation of the Euro­pean fam­i­ly must be a part­ner­ship between France and Ger­many. In this way only can France recov­er the moral lead­er­ship of Europe. There can be no revival of Europe with­out a spir­i­tu­al­ly great France and a spir­i­tu­al­ly great Germany. Zürich, 19 September 2016 Sev­en­ty years to the day after Churchill’s Zürich speech, Zürich Uni­ver­si­ty spon­sored a dis­tin­guished sem­i­nar.…

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“Churchill’s Secret”: Worth a Look

“Churchill’s Secret”: Worth a Look

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Churchill’s Secret, co-pro­duced by PBS Mas­ter­piece and ITV (UK). Direct­ed by Charles Stur­ridge, star­ring Michael Gam­bon as Sir Win­ston and Lind­say Dun­can as Lady Churchill. To watch, click here. 

Excerpt­ed from a review for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.

PBS and ITV have suc­ceed­ed where many failed. They offer a Churchill doc­u­men­tary with a min­i­mum of dra­mat­ic license, rea­son­ably faith­ful to his­to­ry (as much as we know of it). Churchill’s Secret limns the pathos, humor, hope and trau­ma of a lit­tle-known episode: Churchill’s stroke on 23 June 1953, and his mirac­u­lous recov­ery. For weeks after­ward, his faith­ful lieu­tenants in secret ran the gov­ern­ment.…

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Praise for “Avoidable War”

Praise for “Avoidable War”

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Churchill and the Avoid­able War will cost you the price of a cup of cof­fee. You can read it in a cou­ple of nights.  You may then  decide if Churchill was right (or wrong) that World War II could have been pre­vent­ed. Click on “Buy Now” under the book image at right on this page.

Here is an excel­lent sur­vey of the key “what if” junc­tures where his­to­ry could have tak­en a dif­fer­ent turn. What I like about it espe­cial­ly is that it con­sci­en­tious­ly steers away from any defin­i­tive pro­nounce­ments about one zig or zag mak­ing all the dif­fer­ence in pre­vent­ing World War II.…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
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